The word is problematic for several reasons. Firstly, in Anon Chr the word comune can read as be either the noun commune (‘common person, non-noble’) or the adjective commun¹ (‘common, non-noble’), and the lexeme pilardes can be interpreted accordingly as a noun or an adjective. AND¹’s understanding of the term as an adjective seems grammatically more likely and has been retained as the sole attestation of the word used adnominally. Incidently, the FEW includes a Continental French expression pillard de commune, ‘individu qui tente de vivre sur les revenus de la commune’ (8,500b), which, however, does not seem to be applicable here.

Secondly, the exact sense of the word is not clear. All dictionaries agree that this word is an agent-form of piller¹, translating it as ‘thief, robber, one who plunders’. However, all Anglo-Norman citations seem to use the term with reference to a type of soldier with a specific military grade or roll. The Foedera citations (from the same document) suggest that a pillard is an armed soldier on horseback, in the paid service of a knight. The Cron Lond citation specifies that ‘thirteen pillards’ are taken as prisoners of war from the Scottish, together with 28 knights and 11 clerics. In other words, these are not just looters following in the wake of an army, but a small group of military men, mentioned in the same breath (and with the same importance attached) as knights and clerics. Unfortunately, no information can be found on soldiers whose task it is specifically to plunder, and who consequently would go by the name of pillards. As a result, the more general definition, as supported by the other dictionaries, has been retained here.

Purely hypothetically, it may be asked whether the association with the piller¹ word-family is correct. For example, the MED includes pilour n.2: ‘A soldier who specialized in using a sharp-pointed weapon, such as a javelin or spear’ (although this seems to be a literary term only) (absent from the OED), which raises the possibility that a similar term pillard could perhaps also be a derivative of pile2, either in its historic sense of ‘Roman javelin, spear’ or in the more medieval sense of ‘dart, arrow’ (see also pilet). In that case, is it more than just coincidence that the Foedera context first talks about ‘hommes d’armes et archers’, before it moves on to ‘hommes d’armez er .xv. pillards monteez’? Is it possible that a pillard is a kind of archer on horseback? There is, however, no historical or linguistic evidence for such a term.